Jesse Wentworth Crosby - Vision and Assurance at Age 16 of Gospel Truth Yet to Come

When Jesse Wentworth Crosby was around sixteen years old, he began to feel the necessity of finding the true church. Having been raised to believe in God and pray, with his prayers being heard and answered, he looked around at the various churches of his time and found them all lacking. He retired day after day to the woods where no human eye could behold him and poured out his prayers and supplications to Almighty God that He would send some kind messenger, called and ordained of Him, to guide his footsteps in the paths of truth. In answer to repeated supplications, he received a supernatural assurance that calmed his mind and gave him to understand that the truth in its fullness should be unfolded to him. None of the excitements of the day moved him—his feelings were known to God alone, for he told them to no one on earth. This vision prepared him for when, in the summer of 1838 at age eighteen, two elders of the Church came to his father's neighborhood and he immediately recognized in their message the answer to his youthful prayers.